As known in the art, there has been proposed a variety of apparatuses for transporting emergency patients, critical patients, bone-fracture patients and the like, who are impossible or nearly impossible to move for themselves, from one place to another.
A patient in a hospital may be often moved from his/her hospital bed to a medical examination table or an operating table and vice versa. Primary equipment may include a stretcher carried by an assistant and a patient transporting bed with wheels.
However, there is a problem in moving the patient from the hospital bed to the stretcher or the patient transporting bed. For example, although it is a simple task to move the patient in support of the assistant if the patient is cooperative or can move for himself, there may be a challengeable task to move the patient from the hospital bed to the stretcher or the patient transporting bed if the patient is unconscious or has a damage such as a bone-fracture or an injury, which may be worsened by movement.
For the purpose of overcoming the above problem, a patient transporting apparatus is disclosed in, for example, Korean Patent Application Publication No. 2003-0073921.
The disclosed patient transporting apparatus is for transporting a patient who is laid on a stretcher placed on a carrier body. However, this has a problem in that it requires two assistants who have to lift the stretcher from its both sides when the patient is transported from one bed to another, and the weight of the stretcher to support the patient is still the same. In addition, a secondary damage may occur if the assistants miss the stretcher.
Moreover, there is a further problem that a patient who cannot be moved at all has to receive help from at least another assistant in order to transport and safely lay the patient on another table.